The worker injured at Portland’s Unipres plant Tuesday is being monitored but is in stable condition, company officials said Thursday.

The steel worker, whose identity has not been released, had to be flown via LifeFlight Tuesday afternoon after sustaining injures in a fall at approximately noon that day.

The injured man was employed with Hazama-Ando, the general contractor working on an expansion project at the Unipres facility.

He was installing rebar on a location where concrete was going to be poured when he fell a short distance and hit his head.

The initial Unipres investigation confirms that the employee was wearing a safety harness and his personal protective equipment was intact at the time of the incident. Witnesses say he was tied off and was attempting to hook off when he fell backward striking his head, officials with the company’s Human Resources and Safety Office said Thursday.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires that an individual must use a safety tie off when working 4 feet or more above the ground.

The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration did review the incident but does not plan to investigate it, TOSHA spokesman Jeff Hentschel said.

“They’re required to investigate only if there’s a fatality or a catastrophe,” Hentschel said.

Unipres: safety met

In this case, all appropriate safety measures were met. The root cause of the fall is still under investigation.

The injured man was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Portland Fire Chief Al West said.

Unipres USA Inc. is a Japanese-owned maker of metal-stamped auto parts. The Portland facility is the company’s North American headquarters.

Earlier this month, the Portland factory shut down for the afternoon after a fire ignited July 10 in a tunnel.

When Portland fire crews arrived, they found smoke coming from the front of the building, and the employees already evacuated.

Fire crews made their way into the tunnel under the press machines and found the sprinkler system had already extinguished the fire but not before significant damage was caused to the electrical system and hydraulic pumps of one of the main press machines.